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Invité / Norton Hodges
A Death
version française
What shocked me most in him was this –
the unwilled falling away, the last
stretch of a voyage steered by blood,
then the waxy stasis, the pinched mouth.
Although he rallied for a few days –
sat up, joshed the nurses, toyed with
his tabloids and scratch cards, he was
only, I now see, half himself.
In the final act of stage whispers,
missed cues, whatever he had been
dwindled, like the running down of a soft
machine: then, gradually, he became glass,
ornamental enough for the sparse chapel,
the orange roses, Jesus Joy.
Norton Hodges |
